Friday, October 22, 2010

One of the biggest challenges I have faced as a parent is learning that there is not only one way to do things. Train tracks do not have to form a figure eight, peanut butter can be eaten straight from the jar, you don't have to color in the lines.

We went to a Halloween party where he had some stickers to decorate pumpkins to make them look carved. If I had done it I would've made them look how they are 'supposed' to look. The way he did it, however, was way cooler. One looked extra nervous, one looked extra dopey.

It's hard because I grew up where everything had a right way and a wrong way. I was always taught there was one way to load the dishwasher. The one way that maximized the number of dishes while maximizing the effectiveness of the wash. When I was married, I used to scold the ex for putting the dishes in wrong. Until one day he stopped doing it because he always did it "wrong". I realized I was the wrong one.

I grew up with a couple of family members who suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. When you grow up like that you believe that is normal.

Its hard trying to keep a balance between teaching him how things work and allowing him to play however he chooses.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I always know what is next for him. Brushing your teeth, taking a walk, having dinner, playing with trains. But what is next for me?

My next is probably the same thing as yesterday. Go to work, pick him up, make dinner, play some video games. Lather, rinse, repeat. I want a different next. I feel like there is a world of possibilities, yet only a few.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Drugs cause many problems. I know they do. But they do not cause all problems.

When I smoked, my mom would blame everything on the cigarettes. If I stubbed my toe, it was because I smoked.

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My uncle was an IV drug user. But that is not what killed him. He had a brain tumor. The cancer was most likely not caused by the drugs he injected. As far as I am aware, Ted Kennedy wasn't a junkie. But none of this matters. Even if, and I am not suggesting that this is the case, he had only shot up once, it would be one too many times for my mom. For the remainder of his short life he was just a junkie.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

I ventured out on this beautiful October morning and I learned some stuff.

While we were at the playground I really got to observe different parenting styles. There was the inattentive parent whose child could be jumping into a well and wouldn't notice. There was the overly attentive parent who equally annoyed me. This parent had two children. The older of the two went down the fireman's pole and apparently hit his knee or something lame. The mom went over and helped her poor injured son hobble over to the bench. Then the younger, and braver, daughter wanted to go down the pole. Holy crap. Unacceptable. The kid was asking if she could please do it herself, but the mother wouldn't have any of it. The exact same pole I let my three year old go down minutes prior.

Which brings me to a third type of parent, who I think I fit into, the laid-back but encouraging type. There was this man with his 2 year old son and he was letting him go down the aforementioned pole, almost by himself. One of the times the kid did hit his face or something, but when the father didn't make a big deal out of it, neither did he. I like to think I am like this. Encouraging him to do things that are challenging and then kinda steam-rolling over falls. This does backfire, on occasion, though, when I insist that he is fine, then a few minutes later I notice he is hemorrhaging. Oops.

Then there was the highly interactive parent, playing tag with his kids. That was really cute. I strive to do this more.

All of these observations made me think of my parents. They were all "You can't do it? Well, I guess you can't do it." When I couldn't do the monkey bars my mom said that, well, she didn't have any upper body strength either. So that was that. I never learned the monkey bars. I don't think they were over protective, I think that their philosophy was that you are born to be able to do X and not Y so why bother with Y? Even more recently my dad told my friend that I was afraid of bridges and heights. I said "No I'm not!" "Well there was that bridge that you would never go over." "Yeah, that was a long time ago. I've gotten over it." Like if you are afraid of heights, you are afraid of heights and that is it. I want to always try to help Ryder overcome his fears by showing him that there is nothing to be afraid of.